I saw this mentioned today – a coming soon splash page from Trion, along with quotes from ArchAge players about how poorly they found the game. I have no idea what the splash page is supposed to depict though. Is the game being rebooted? Is a new expansion coming out that fixes things? A new legendary server? Anyone have any info? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!
This is pretty much as far as I got in ArcheAge when I attempted to peek in and see where things were at. I’ve mentioned this before, but a lot of games out there do an absolutely horrible job at welcoming a returning player back to the game. I’m not talking about the little goodie bags that were waiting for me – but there was no indication as to what I had been working on, what I needed to be working on, what had changed since I had been away, or what I should work towards next. What I did know was that my character was level 40, she had a bunch of quests on her, and 700 gold plus relatively full bags that seemed to be mostly consumables.
I know that in order to get back into a game your best bet is usually not to revisit your old characters but to create brand new characters and get familiar with all the ins and outs – but I rarely ever want to start from scratch, and I don’t necessarily feel that players should have to. What I’d like to see is some sort of special UI that pops up for players who have been away from the game for XYZ amount of time, with options on revisiting skills, quests, what’s changed, what’s new. Maybe an in-game browser highlighting the very important changes. If it could somehow take a peek at your last logged in date and calculate notes from there, that would be simply amazing and would be a great step in getting me to re-join your game. As it is now, there are very few games I can pick up from where I left off and know what the hell is going on.
I did have a lot of fun logging in my pirate character. As you can see by the character info panel on the left hand side, she has almost 1,000 crime points. She hasn’t been killed in PVP though so she hasn’t had to go to trial. Most of her crime points (OK, all) are from stealing crops that were not on farms, and for uprooting other players crops (also not on farms). She’s my “evil” character, if that’s still a thing. Unfortunately, just like my main character I had no idea what I was doing or where I should go or what I needed to do. This second character is level 32, and I remember zero about her class. That being said, logging in is pretty much all I did before logging right back out.
I suppose that’s just a hint for me to start over if I want to re-learn anything about this game..
How long has it been since you stuck with a single MMO for at least a year? I remember when Tipa used to put out a challenge to people to stick with a single game for a year, and almost no one could accomplish it even when the choices were much more limited, let alone these days where there are games for every genre you could possibly think of. Sure, we may play one game at a time, or two games, or have some combination of F2P & subscription, but more and more I notice that we are ALL becoming nomadic gamers, bouncing between games when the mood strikes (or when that new shiny pops up on the table).
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just something I’ve noticed over the years. I would love to be one of those people who stick with a single game for any length of time but I simply don’t have that in me any more (for a few reasons). One reason would have to be the price point. Money fluctuates throughout the year and my game choices will change based on that. A good example is EQ2. My subscription expires the 2nd week of July, so I find very little motivation to log in and play right now as I know I won’t be re-subscribing (baby on the way, I simply have to re-allocate my funds for a bit). I’ve never really enjoyed playing games with a sub as a F2P player, not because I think F2P is “bad” but because I’d rather have access to the entire game. Speaking of – why doesn’t Trion offer some sort of bulk subscription plan that offers access to all of their games, much like station access? Rift and ArcheAge would certainly be two games I’d love to check out more of, but I’m not sure how I’d feel about the F2P options (especially in ArcheAge where owning land is tied to having a subscription). Offer a package deal and those subscriptions become a lot more favorable. I blame Belghast and Bhagpuss for my sudden interest in Trion games, both of them have been posting about Rift / ArcheAge on their blogs. I was interested enough that I updated glyph though I haven’t actually logged in (yet).
Speaking of EQ2, a new server opened up yesterday. It’s the Isle of Refuge, and it runs just as all the other servers in the EQ2 line up do, except the majority of items can be sold / traded and don’t have the heirloom tag. There’s a great write up about it over at EQ2wire, and the server reminds me a lot of Firiona Vie, the RP server over on EQ. There are a few other rules to the FV server besides that but it was one that stuck out to me. Why Daybreak has added such a server I have no idea (nor does anyone else it seems if you read through the comments on the article) but it’s nice to see things are not completely stagnant.
As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!
[47/50] It has been ages since I played ArcheAge, but a friend has recently returned to the game and of course the best way to get me hyped up and playing, is to be one of those friends. Of course not owning property has always been one of the things stopping me from playing, and the ease at which you can lose said property. Plus, I’m not really that big on PVP.. why do I want to play again? Oh, right.
Friends.
[48/50]
[49/50]
[50/50] With that final screenshot, I complete my IntPiPoMo of 50 screenshots for the month of November! A very bright and colourful month here at MmoQuests. A big huge thank you to the organizers, and I’m looking forward to participating next year, too!
Not too long ago I was playing ArcheAge and I was convinced that this was ‘the game for me’. I purchased a multi-month subscription and leveled my main up to 40-something; where I promptly logged out one day and then never logged back in (minus one exception, I did log in when there was a promotion ongoing, I wanted the mount). What is it about games that draws me in? What changes about them that makes me question why I even began playing?
The first question is quite easy. I love a robust world. I love being able to explore, doing quests, and a crafting system. I love player housing and player created content. What I don’t like is end game, and the closer I get to that end game the less likely it is that I’ll continue playing. What changes about the games that makes me stop? Well, it’s not something about the games themselves so much as the fact that as I continue to play I get closer to the ‘end game’ whatever that may be. In most cases it’s a world that I simply don’t want to participate in. I have no interest in raiding and it’s rare that I want to group. I’m tired of running daily quests, and I dislike that dailies have become the crutch most MMOs use to convince players to log in each day. What I need is something to convince the casual player (me) to continue playing so that it doesn’t feel like a grind. In most cases this ends up being either 1. alts, 2. crafting, or 3. Some sort of mini-casual end-game like housing, collecting pets, mounts, or achievements. Problem is, there’s so much competition for these things that I can easily log into 5 or 6 other MMOs and find the exact same things in a world where I’ve already established my characters.
Lets look at ArcheAge in specific. I really disliked the whole idea of having to constantly log in to make sure that my plot of land wasn’t going to vanish. It made it seem like a task, and I worked really hard to get that piece of land when there were so many others trying to get land, so the idea that it could vanish so easily was quite upsetting. Then there was the fact that I couldn’t purchase more land unless I camped it and battled other characters to earn it, or spent a huge amount of money to purchase it. I didn’t want to have to wait months down the road for content that I wanted to do ‘now’. Add to that, labour. If I was ever at the cap for labour I felt as though I was wasting it, and that I must log in to use it up and make sure that I was always optimizing my character in that regard. Eventually it just became draining. Finally, there was the fact that I was quickly approaching end game. I felt that I was ‘behind’ everyone else, that I was constantly going to have to play catch-up, and that there would be little to no ways for me to actually catch up unless I participated in those tasks which I decidedly did not enjoy (grouping).
So I stopped logging in. Once I lost my plot, it was easy to cancel my subscription and stop playing. Take away one thing that I felt like I had ‘earned’ and the lure of the game goes down drastically. Make me feel obligated to log in (muck like work) rather than excited, and I’ll be less likely to log in. Make it seem like a chore, instead of fun. That’s what these systems did to a casual player like me.
That’s not to say I won’t ever be back, I did log in a few days ago because a lot of friends on twitter were excited about the game and I of course wanted to feel like a part of that excitement, but the instant I logged my characters in and realized they no longer own land, no longer have extra storage, and were so far behind that it would just be a lot of work to ever get caught up, I logged right back out.
That’s not how you keep me playing your game.
stargrace